The present invention relates to power supplies. More particularly, the present invention relates to catear power supplies used to provide power to electronic circuits and which may receive their power across a circuit element disposed in a power line. For example, two wire lamp dimmers which are disposed in the hot side of an AC line are used to power lamp loads and vary the lamp intensity. The neutral line is provided directly to the lamp load and is not connected to the dimmer. In this way, a dimmer can be substituted for a single or multiple pole switch. The problem arises in such situations that if the dimmer includes additional circuitry, for example, control circuits or in some more complex systems, microprocessors and radio frequency circuits for transmitting and receiving control and status information, it is necessary to derive the power for those circuits solely from the hot line, since the neutral is not available. This can be done in a conventional way by providing a voltage dropping circuit in the hot line. However, this has a deleterious effect on the load and, in particular, would reduce the maximum brightness of the lamp connected to the dimmer.
The catear circuit was developed to draw current from the hot AC line in a two wire dimmer configuration. As shown in FIG. 2, in a conventional dimmer, a triac (not shown) is turned on at a particular point in the AC half cycle and turns off prior to the next zero crossing. FIG. 2 shows both the AC waveform (marked AC) and a full wave rectified version of the AC waveform wherein the negative going half cycles are inverted by a full wave rectifier. The inverted half cycle is marked DC in FIG. 2. In the first half cycle, the regions when the triac is typically off are shown at 1 and 3. The region marked 2 is when the triac is on. As well known, dimmers of this type are known as phase-control dimmers and the intensity of the lamp load is controlled by varying the cut-in point of the triac, thus varying the amount of power delivered to the load, and thus the intensity or brightness level of the lamp load. After the triac turns on (region 2), the voltage across the dimmer is substantially zero and it is difficult to obtain power from the dimmer itself at this time in the absence of any voltage dropping circuit, which, for the reasons discussed above, is undesirable. However, power can be taken from the AC line in the time period before the triac turns on (region 1) because at this point in time, the lamp is off. Similarly, power may be obtained from the AC line after the triac goes off before the next zero crossing (region 3). As shown in FIG. 2, the distinctive “catears” of regions 1 and 3 of the waveform shown both before the triac turns on and after it turns off, give the circuit its name. It is during these time periods, i.e., during the “catears” that power can be derived from the AC hot line without interfering with the dimmer operation.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional catear circuit. The catear circuit is wired to receive power from a rectifier circuit (RECT), for example, a full wave rectifier, which is wired across a portion of the dimmer circuit to receive rectified AC power. The rectifier provides current substantially only during the catear regions because when the triac of the dimmer circuit is on, there is substantially zero voltage across the dimmer. As shown in FIG. 1, a transistor Q206, which may be an FET, is turned on during the catear portions of the rectified AC, i.e., before the triac turns on and after the triac turns off again. The gate of transistor Q206 is provided with a voltage sufficient to turn it on via resistors R210, R212 and R220. When Q206 goes on, a charging capacitor C262 is charged via resistor R280 and diode D252. The output across capacitor C262 is provided to a voltage regulator circuit, for example, a linear regulator U203 which provides a substantially constant DC output to power the circuits connected thereto.
Accordingly, when the rectified line voltage is lower than a selected voltage, the charging transistor Q206 conducts to allow charging of the energy storage capacitor C262. The rate of charge of the capacitor is determined by resistor R280.
When the rectified line voltage exceeds a predetermined value, then transistor Q204 is turned on by the voltage divider formed by resistors R214, R221 and R276. When transistor Q204 turns on, which time can be set by voltage divider circuit comprising resistors R214 and R221 so that it is just prior to the time when the triac of the dimmer circuit turns on, the voltage at the collector of Q204 goes substantially to circuit common, thereby bringing the gate of Q206 substantially to circuit common and turning Q206 off so that Q206 stops charging capacitor C262 during the time when the triac is on.
Accordingly, capacitor Q262 is utilized as a charge storage element to charge up during the time prior to the triac turning on during the catear portion 1 of the rectified AC line voltage. During the time when the triac is on (region 2), power for the associated electronic circuits connected to the output of regulator Q203 is provided by the storage capacitor C262. When the triac turns off in region 3 of FIG. 2, the voltage at the base of Q204 will again be below its turn-on threshold and Q206 will again provide charging current to capacitor C262 during catear region 3.
In addition, a circuit comprising transistor Q252 is also provided to sense an overcurrent condition. Should an overcurrent be detected across resistor R280, transistor Q252 turns on, thus reducing the gate voltage of transistor Q206 to near zero and turning it off. In addition, a bus regulation circuit comprising zener diode D207 and resistor R275 is provided. If the voltage across storage capacitor C262 rises too high, the zener diode D207 will avalanche, raising the voltage across resistor R276 and turning on Q204 which will thus reduce the gate voltage to transistor Q206, turning it off. Accordingly, if C262 exceeds a predetermined voltage, Q206 will be turned off in that instance also to stop charging C262.
A problem arises with the conventional catear circuit in that its efficiency is impaired because transistor Q206 operates for a substantial portion of the time during the “catears” in its linear mode of operation, that is, it is not saturated. This is due to the drive voltage rising with the line, as well as other factors. It is thus turned on too slowly which causes the switching FET to operate in the linear region for much of the charging time, thereby dissipating power in the FET itself.
Accordingly, it is desirable to improve the prior art catear power supply circuit to improve its efficiency and, in particular, to improve its efficiency by ensuring that the switching device that charges the charging capacitor operates in its saturated region, thereby dissipating the least amount of power in the switching device and improving the overall efficiency of the catear power supply.